I recently stumbled across an article in The Christian Post, "Why Homosexual Behavior Is More Like Consensual Incest and Polyamory than Race or Gender: A Reasoned, and Reasonable Case For Secular Society." The Christian Post had my attention. Intrigued by the purported reasonability of the article, I spent some time with it. The article itself was extremely politically and morally loaded, even more so than the title suggests, and it brought up questions for me about how sexual diversity is viewed and evaluated in a quickly changing society.
The author of the article, an Associate Professor of New Testament who specializes in homosexuality and the Bible, begins by describing the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act," passed by the U.S. House of Representatives this past April. The bill, in its own words "seeks to expand upon the 1969 US federal hate-crime law by extending beyond federally-protected activities and towards bodily crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, in addition to the current provisions of bodily crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived race, color, religion, and national origin."
The author doesn't seem to disagree with the general rationale behind hate crime laws as offering protection to potentially marginalized groups vulnerable to hatred and violence. His objection to the bill becomes clear in the following paragraphs, where he asserts that homosexuality (and presumably other forms of sexual diversity, such as polyamory) shouldn't be "worthy of special protections." Why? He states that the reason special protections should be given to all genders and races is that they are parts of our identity that are "100% heritable, absolutely immutable, and primarily non-behavioral conditions of life, and therefore, intrinsically benign." Homosexuality, on the other hand, he describes as a less-than-benign behavior that is not heritable or immutable, and that is comparable to polyamory and incest (both of which he also describes as destructive).
However, is it correct to say that sexual orientation is not heritable and immutable? Sexual orientation (defined narrowly as attraction to gender and sex) is often thought of as a part of identity that is not completely heritable, but it is nonetheless usually immutable. The so-called Gay Gene, while accounting for some of the variance in sexual orientation, does not determine a person's sexuality. What exactly does account for the variance in orientation isn't really known, but what is known is that sexual orientation is not easily changed. A recent APA report provides evidence for this, stating that studies "found that sexual orientation was unlikely to change due to efforts designed for this purpose." It appears that while people can choose to change behavior, orientation is less amenable to attempts at change. (That is not to say, however, that sexual orientation is not fluid and that people's preferences never change with time. Rather, the idea is that people are rarely able to willfully change their orientation.) Sexual orientation, similar to other traits, is only partially heritable but arguably immutable.
That said, is it important whether sexual orientation is 100% heritable and immutable when deciding whether to include sexual (and gender) minorities under the hate crimes law? Should those criteria be the ones used to determine who deserves special protections and who does not? If the author in The Christian Post article maintains that heritable and immutable aspects of our identity are the only things that deserve special protection, does that mean hate crimes related to a person's disability or religion shouldn't be specially protected? Religion, to take that as the example, is not heritable, but is a mutable, non-genetic choice. Furthermore, it can be argued that some religions, at some times, have not been "benign."
However, the author doesn't dispute religion being protected under the hate crimes law, even though certain religions may endorse alternative sexual behaviors that other religions vehemently disagree with. The special protection of religious diversity and expression is sometimes assumed and taken for granted, perhaps because it has existed since 1969. But it's taken another 40 years for sexually diverse individuals to earn the same level of protection. Until very recently, an individual carrying a "Gays Go To Hell" sign was protected under hate laws, while a sexual or gender minority walking by was not. Was that "reasonable"? Why were some populations protected under the hate crimes law, while others were not? What were the criteria being used to determine who deserved special protection?
The utility of the hate crimes law and who should be covered under it are intensely debated topics, and they're often personal. But however passionate or belief-based a position is about who deserves special protection, it seems that we need a consistent set of criteria that applies to everyone protected under these laws. If religious diversity and expression are specially protected because self-identified religious individuals are vulnerable to hatred and persecution, then it logically follows that sexual minorities should be offered the same special protection, as they too are targets of hatred and violence. If we instead assert that immutability of traits is the criterion to be used, then neither religion nor sexual orientation nor disability deserves special protection. What should be the criteria used to determine which populations, conditions, or traits should be specially protected? Individuals vulnerable to violence? Genetically determined traits? People suffering from mental or physical illness? Or something else?
